Establishment of the Promotion
Center for Automobile Recycling

The Japan Automobile Manufacturers
Association, Inc. (JAMA) and eight automobile-related organizations (Note 1) have
jointly decided to establish the Promotion Center for Automobile Recycling. The
meeting of promoters for the new Center took place on Friday, October 27, 2000.
Business will commence some time until the end of November when the competent
ministerial agencies (Note 2) have given their official approval.

Until now, the recycling of automobiles has been carried out under the "End-of-Life
Vehicles Recycling Initiative" of the Ministry of International Trade and
Industry, and the voluntary action plans adopted by all industries concerned and
individual companies which embraced a voluntary commitment to recycling from the
automobile design and manufacturing to the disposal stages on the basis of the
said Initiative.

However, the conditions concerning the recycling of automobiles and their appropriate
disposal are showing significant changes from the situation at the time when the
End-of-Life Vehicles Recycling Initiative was passed (1997) due to the enforcement
and revision of relating acts such as the Basic Law for Promoting a Recycling-Based
Society and the individual enforcement acts including the Container and Packing
Recycling and Household Appliances and the establishment of the European Union's
Directive on End-of-Life Cars.

Under these conditions, this Center has been created to give further impetus to
the establishment by the automobile industry of effective recycling measures for
vehicles. Its purpose is (1) to ensure greater coordination of the activities
by unifying efforts of the industries concerned and to promote the smooth implementation
of concrete actions, (2) to form a coordinated and unified opinion among the industries
on the issues of automobile recycling and to promote a better and fuller understanding
among the ministerial agencies concerned and the general public at large, and
(3) to acts as an organization promoting automobile recycling measures to be undertaken
by the automobile industries in the future. (Information Material 2)

This Center will engage, for the time being, in the following activities that
are already being undertaken by JAMA. These activities are: (a) Printing and issue
of manifests, (b) System for recovering and destroying specific chlorofluorocarbons
(CFC12), (c) Studies concerning end-of-life vehicles, (d) Offering automobile
recycling-related information. In the future, the system for collection and recycling
airbags (currently under experimental operation at the Subcommittee of the JAMA
and the Japan Auto Parts Industries Association) and the system for recovering
and destroying alternative chlorofluorocarbons (HFC134a) (currently being developed)
will be transferred to the Center which is also anticipated to include in its
activity scope those measures that are based on the results of forecasts made
about the automobile recycling system by the Subcommittee for Automobile Recycling
of the Industrial Structure Council.

(Note 2) The main ministries in charge are: Ministry of International
Trade and Industry and Ministry of Transport

Information Material 2

PURPORT OF THE FOUNDATION OF THE CENTER

The first Japanese-built cars were produced at the beginning of the 20th century,
and now that almost a century has passed since then, the automotive industry is
one of Japan's core sectors. It holds great expectations and has an equally heavy
burden of responsibility both at home and abroad. In the course of its history
it has faced and coped with the many problems that have arisen from generation
to generation, with commitments such as traffic safety measures, energy and resource
saving programs, and in more recent years actions to reduce environmental impacts.

Once of the major challenges we face at the dawn of the 21st century is the establishment
of a "recycling-based society." The automobile-related industries have
until the present taken the following actions to cope with the problems of recycling
and waste treatment: Based on the "End-of-Life Vehicles Recycling Initiative"
announced by the Ministry of International Trade and Industry in 1997, measures
were initiated for the recovery and destruction of specific chlorofluorocarbons,
for the collection and recycling of air bag inflators, for the reduction of the
amount of shredder residues, and for the operation of the Manifest System. The
industries have embraced voluntary commitments to the problems mainly arising
at the stage of end of life vehicles. Amidst these moves, however, there are still
many significant differences among the vendors in the used car business sector,
repair operators, car disassembly and demolition businesses and vehicle shredding
operators in the way in which business or service approval is being handled at
all stages in the waste disposal or recycling area and also in terms of the certification
criteria for used cars. It is therefore recognized that a coordinated and unified
effort will be needed targeting the entire automobile related industries in a
common endeavor to come to terms with these problems.

In Japan, developments have taken place in more recent years with the establishment
of the Basic Law for Promoting a Recycling-Based Society and the revision of the
Law for Promoting the Effective Use of Natural Resources and the Waste Disposal
and Public Cleaning Law. There has also been progress in the development of a
legal system governing the recycling activities for each product and industrial
field such as containers and packaging and household electric appliances. Abroad,
the European Union has created a legal framework of end-of-life vehicle aimed
at preventing the illegal disposal and promoting the recycling. This EU Directive
came into effect on October 21 of this year. The situation concerning the recycling
of automobiles and their appropriate disposal is changing substantially both at
home and abroad from the time when the "End-of-Life Vehicles Recycling Initiative"
was established.

Under these conditions, it is essential to have an industry-wide organization
whose task will be to foster a coordinated approach to the basic principles and
concrete action programs of their own in order to resolve the problems encountered
in the "Establishment of a Recycling-Based Society" for the 21st century,
and through such a concerted industry-wide approach, to bring about a smooth system
for the recycling of end-of-vehicles and build mutual trust among all stakeholders,
to promote a more sophisticated system for recycling automobiles, to establish
unified action programs to deal with environmental problems, and to promote effective
efforts to this end.

In recognition of these issues, it has been decided to establish the Promotion
Center for Automobile Recycling for the purpose of contributing to a high standard
of living in an endeavor to secure the interests of automobile users and ensure
the sound development of the national economy through the recycling of automobiles
and promoting their appropriate disposal and thereby make a contribution to the
more effective utilization of natural resources and the protection of the environment.